to be a christian

… When you meet a plumber, do you ask her if she is a Christian plumber?

… My understanding is that to be Christian is to do whatever it is that you do with great passion and devotion. We throw ourselves into our work because everything is sacred. I love how Paul put it in Colossians: “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” He is teaching people to live as Christians, and then whatever they do will be sacred, holy work. Music is already worship. Music is praise. Music is sacred. Music is good. Creation doesn’t need to make a label to make it sacred or acceptable or blessed. When God made the world, God called it “good”. Now obviously anything can be corrupted and desecrated and used for purposes other than those which God intends, but making music is sacred enough. Paul put it like this: “For everything God created is good.”

This is why Jesus wouldn’t have blessed the food before he ate. He blessed God for providing the earth, which provides the food. The food is already blessed, because it comes from the earth, and “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”

This is why it is impossible for a Christian to have a secular job. If you follow Jesus and you are doing what you do in his name, then it is no longer secular work; it’s sacred. You are there; God is there. The difference is our awareness.

Somebody asked me the other day why our church doesn’t support the arts because we don’t have dramas and short-act plays in the services. I realized the question, as with almost every question, goes back to creation. I don’t believe something has to be in a church service to be “for God”. As if the only acting that is “for God” is acting in a church service. A church is a community of people who are learning how to be certain kinds of people wherever they find themselves, so they can do whatever it is they do “in the name of the Lord Jesus”. The goal isn’t to bring everyone’s work into the church; the goal is for the church to be these unique kinds of people who are transforming the places they live and work and play because they understand the whole earth is filled with God. God isn’t in one building only. Doing things for God happens all the time, everywhere. If you are an actor, the goal isn’t for you to do your work in a church building in a church service. Please go wherever it is in the world that people act and do it well. Really well. Throw yourself into it an give it everything you have.”